For the last century, cars have dominated ground transportation, largely relegating bicycling and other active modes of transportation to recreational and professional athletic use. Even in places where active transportation is used for commuting or errands, the infrastructure does not protect nor encourage cyclists and scooter riders. However, as obesity rates climb and American society becomes increasingly concerned with carbon pollution, active transportation has reentered the arena as a viable contender that can address both concerns. Just as automobiles transformed the landscape with highways and paved roads, the newly dubbed "Mobility Revolution" looks to alter the landscape once more, and Landscape Architects are key to its success.

The Mobility Revolution
The "Mobility Revolution" is an idea proffered by Lukas Neckermann in his 2015 book of the same name. It refers to a revolution in the automobile industry defined by the social drive for Zero (carbon) Emissions, Zero Accidents, and Zero Ownership. The first two "Zeroes" mainly involve automobile developers and legislators, but the third has been addressed by the growing popularity of micromobility. While Neckermann focuses on car-sharing as an alternative to "Zero Ownership," other kinds of sharing systems are proving much more powerful. According to the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), "micromobility" refers to "any small, low-speed, human- or electric-powered transportation device." This category includes "bicycles, scooters, electric-assist bicycles, electric scooters, and other small, lightweight, wheeled conveyances."

Micromobility Statistics
In 2021, the FHWA released a report showing a 60% increase in the number of trips taken using a shared micromobility system between 2018 and 2019. While this number plummeted during the pandemic, the National Association of City Transportation Officials (NACTO) reported that it was closely approaching pre-pandemic levels in the U.S. and even surpassing those levels in Canada in 2022. These statistics don't include the increasing private ownership of micromobility vehicles, which has been growing and even outpacing electric vehicle sales in the U.S. (Cox Automotive, 2023). From a social standpoint, dockless e-scooters fill a need for individuals who have limited access to a car or public transportation.

These statistics also reveal a tragic reality. A FHWA 2021 report showed that "20 of the 24 e-scooter fatalities in the United States involved motor vehicles, including some heavier vehicles and trucks." Due to automobile dominance, there is a general lack of infrastructure protecting cyclists and scooter riders. In fact, PeopleForBikes - a national business coalition that works with universities, businesses, and municipalities to make bicycling safer and more accessible - found in their 2023 annual review that the quality of bike networks in over half of U.S. cities received a "poor" rating of 20/100 or less. This assessment is based on the SPRINT acronym: Safe speeds, Protected bike lanes, Reallocated space for biking and walking, Intersection treatments, Network Connections, and Trusted Data. Of the six categories, Landscape Architects directly influence five: Safe Speeds, Protected bike lanes, Reallocated space for biking and walking, Intersection treatments, and Network Connections.

 
Safe Speeds
The most obvious sign of speed control is a speed limit sign, featuring a number determined by local legislation, but less obvious methods are integrated into the design of the road itself. These methods are often called "traffic calming," and some common examples include medians, lane shifts, traffic circles, speed humps, and speed tables that can double as crosswalks. Due to expense and limited road space, physical traffic calming methods are only considered after less-invasive tactics like additional signage, a radar speed trailer, or the increased presence of traffic enforcement officers prove ineffective.

Protected Bike Lanes
Since the 1990s, sharrows, short for "shared-use arrows," have become the default approach for bicycling infrastructure in civic planning. However, PeopleForBikes' senior director of infrastructure, Dave Snyder, recently wrote about studies from the 90s and early 2000s showing that drivers do not change their behavior to accommodate cyclists (2023). On a popular bicycling route in San Francisco called "The Wiggle" where sharrows were doing nothing to protect cyclists, road safety activist group Safe Street Rebel installed signs in the middle of the street in an effort to reduce vehicular speeds and therefore collisions. Two days after this guerrilla action was taken, SFGATE reported one of the signs had been run over by a car, showing that cyclists are just as vulnerable to accidents and injuries with or without sharrows marking the road.

Though cities have experimented with buffered bike lanes and designated bike boulevards, the best way to protect cyclists and scooter riders is to create a separated bike lane (SBL) that is physically removed from all other moving traffic. The form of separation can vary: from flexible posts combined with a painted buffer, to inflexible barriers made of concrete, to a grade separation. For example, when Buenos Aires, Argentina found that less than half of cyclists used the formal bike network "and 86% of crashes involving cyclists occurred on streets lacking bicycle infrastructure" (World Research Institute, 2022), they jumped on the disruption to public transportation caused by the Covid-19 pandemic to improve their infrastructure. They first added protected bike lanes with plastic bollards and later made the separation permanent with concrete barriers. As a result, the busiest streets in the city saw the number of cyclists increase up to 146% and the number of cycling-related injuries decrease up to 92%. As a bonus, cyclists reported that increased bike lane connectivity reduced their travel time by up to 10%. In the United States, a 2023 study released by the FHWA revealed that creating a SBL had the potential to reduce crashes by 50 percent. Some valid concerns about these changes include limited road space but, according to NACTO, "lane widths of 10 feet are appropriate in urban areas and have a positive impact on the street's safety without impacting traffic operations."

Reallocated Space for Biking and Walking
Cyclists and scooter riders need to be separated not only from vehicles, but also from pedestrians. In an opinion piece from Strong Towns Media, writer Emma Durand-Wood applies the concept of a "stroad" to the reality of multi-use paths. Coined in 2013 by the same media group, "stroad" describes "multi-laned thoroughfares" that combine a street where people leisurely interact with businesses with a road where high-speed travel occurs. In a similar vein, multi-use paths combine swift, commuting riders with pedestrians and recreational riders who are in no hurry. Durand-Wood points out that multi-use paths seldom have enough room for faster commuters to pass slower pedestrians and riders. This obstacle is further complicated by the fact that multi-use paths are often bordered by large plant life that create blind corners, increasing the likelihood of collisions. All this makes multi-use paths inefficient and potentially dangerous for both kinds of users, indicating a need for lanes dedicated solely for micromobility commuters.

Intersection Treatments
According to PeopleForBikes, "about 50% of traffic injuries and 25% of traffic fatalities occur at intersections." To minimize these occurrences, some common solutions include "stop signs, traffic signals, flashing beacons, and crossing islands," but Landscape Architects can also utilize a trend called "daylighting." Daylighting is a design technique that removes obstructions like vehicular parking from within 20-25 feet of an intersection in order to increase the visibility of cyclists, pedestrians, and scooter riders. This space can be repurposed as bicycle parking or a curb extension with seating, among other options.

Network Connections
While the above strategies largely address safety, increasing the connectivity of bike lanes makes it easier for cyclists and scooter riders to reach their destination and contributes to the infrastructure's longevity and success. Connectivity includes seamless integration not only among bike lanes but also between bike lanes and the existing public transportation network. To that end, Schenectady, NY recently opened The Gateway Mobility Hub, a central transit area that provides access to up to ten transportation routes via bus lines, bike lanes, and walking paths as well as car-share, bike-share, and scooter-share services. Due to the success of the Schenectady mobility hub, the region's transportation authority announced the construction of two more mobility hubs in Albany and Troy, NY. These new locations will create a transportation triangle between the three cities, increasing local and regional mobility. By utilizing existing official networks and analyzing unofficial commuting patterns, cities can create integrated systems that will multiply transportation options for residents and visitors while ensuring the longevity of the expanded system.

Other Considerations - Parking
One aspect not mentioned in the SPRINT model is the need for secure parking. In places where no marked parking exists, negligent handling of shared mobility devices has led to inconvenience and frustration. For example, Paris, France recently went from fully embracing self-service electric scooters to banning them entirely via popular vote (NPR, 2023). One main reason for the ban included reckless driving on sidewalks that led to injuries and even a few fatalities. The other main reason was the lack of parking infrastructure that resulted in piles of scooters obstructing small city streets. To address related issues in New York City, the New York Department of Transportation announced that they would install 500 secure, enclosed parking locations to reduce both the unregulated accumulation and the theft of micromobility devices left on city sidewalks (2024). The hope is to make active transportation a safer, more convenient option for residents.

In a study with Lime, a global shared micromobility service, the University of Oregon investigated the best ways to accommodate micromobility vehicles in urban settings (2024). Based on the results, the researchers recommend placing designated parking locations, or parking corrals, every 200 meters (656 feet) in order to maximize parking compliance. They also advise evenly distributing these parking corrals to prevent creating a cluster of parking availability in one location while the surrounding area becomes a parking "desert." Their final suggestion is to vary the capacity of each parking corral based on its surroundings, leaving higher capacity corrals for tourist and leisure areas and lower capacity corrals for residential areas. If a city struggles to find space for parking, they might implement daylighting in their street design, which would create the space needed for parking corrals and increase safety for cyclists and scooter riders.

Final Thoughts
Though current infrastructure largely favors automobiles, the Mobility Revolution is pushing for safer, more convenient infrastructure that would allow all active transportation users to get where they need to go. Cities that have long prioritized bicycles and those that have recently jumped onto the trend exemplify tangible actions Landscape Architects can take to make sharing the road that much safer.